He was my oppa, handsome and charming. We had known each other for almost 4 years now and somewhere along the lines, I had fallen head over heel in love with him.

His bad boy charm made me swoon at the thought of him, but knowing the huge difference between him and I, I chose to stay and fulfill the role of a sister instead because I was too much of a coward; I was afraid that I would end up loosing him.

He protected me when I was at my weakest. He defended me and even fought for me when I was powerless and vulnerable.

“Minah-ah, thanks,” he said ruffling my hair while wincing in pain every time I would dab the cotton ball on his wounds. Today’s fight seemed to have been particularly brutal, but I wouldn’t know because he never tells me anything about them, not wanting me to get involved, I suppose.

Treating his wounds made my heart feel as if it had been stabbed a million times and beaten worse than he was. “Yunho oppa, you have to stop getting into fights all the time.” I said as I tried to be as gentle as possible with the cuts.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be alright. I’m always all right, so don’t you worry about me okay?” he chuckled as he put his shirt back on.

He never bandaged his wounds because he thought bandages were not manly.

“Yunho oppa, I have a question,” I gathered the courage to ask, “why did you decide to save me?” That faithful day, he had helped me when no one wanted to; he had saved my life.

My parents had died in a car accident, and I was sent to live with an uncle that I’d never even met. He treated me like a slave and would beat me every time he was drunk. Unable to live in such conditions, I decided to run away.

Anywhere other than there was fine, I had thought at the time, only to find out that the streets were even more terrifying. A group of boys had approached me and just when I was about to be hurt, he sprang out of nowhere and saved me. Then, he let me live here with him.

Even though it was a shabby fifth floor apartment, it felt like heaven. The window opened up to the view of a lake and markets were within walking distances of the building. The most important part was that Yunho oppa was here.

“I don’t know, really,” he answered me, “I guess that frightened look that you carried that night reminded me so much of myself.”

I smiled in response. “You know I’m thankful everyday that you decided to save me?”

The gratefulness I felt towards him was immense, and I don’t think that I would be able to repay him, ever. I’m not sure how long this or it would last still, or what it was, this thing of me living with him.

We were lovers? No. Were we siblings? No. Are we friends then? There was this ambiguity in the way we treated each other, something that blurred the definition of our relationship.

Stop trying to put a name to everything, just go ahead with it.

I had told myself that every time I would hope that his heart would return the feelings my own heart were emitting.

I looked down at him, as he rested on the couch. His beautiful features, his sculpted cheek-bones….he seemed like a god. He was a god with a heart of gold, an angel that had saved my life.

Yunho opened his eyes, and saw me looking at him. And as if he read my mind,

“Ayy, Minah-ah, don’t go all mushy on me now, okay? I saved you, but you are saving me too, you’re the little angel who saved my soul” he said, pointing at his heart

Seeing that I was still hesitant, he put his hand through my hair,

 “Just remember that you’re one girl in a million and I wouldn’t trade you for all the gold in the world, ‘kaay?” he said sheepishly, lying lazily on the couch.

And like that, he drifted to sleep, carrying a boyish smile on his face.

One girl in a million.

Did he really mean that? He had said those words so many times, but in the end, I was just a sister to him. A little girl he took under his wing because of pity. It was sympathy rather than love that he had felt for me.

Why would he love me? He was the bad boy of our school, the trademark hottie. He walked around as if he owned the world, and feared nothing. While I was the one standing behind my books, begging for the little bit of light and attention he would give me.

I ran my finger on his soft cheek. His sleeping face was so peaceful that it strained my heart. It was so different from the look he wore in his eyes when he was fighting :an ice cold stare, a completely emotionless glare...

Every time he would get into a fight, I would sit and pray for him to come home. My worst nightmare was that one day; he wouldn’t come back anymore; that he would leave me, whether it was because he wanted to move out or worst, because…..of…life and death.

“One girl in a million,”

His sweet words resonated within me. He had said them so many times, did he really mean them? Why was he so nice to me?

Lying beside me on the couch, Yunho shivered a little. I brought the sheet closer up and watched his body heave up and down, deep asleep. I was like his mother, his sister and his friend. But I am not his lover.

I have seen him going around and kissing girls, doing things with them….Fortunately, he never brought any of them home….they always did it at the girl’s house.

I knew he was a bad boy, but under all the mischief, there was goodness, and that’s the Yunho I fell in love with.

But I couldn’t do this anymore. It had been 3 years. No matter how grateful I was, I couldn’t hide my love any longer.

But confessing would mean that I would forever loose him, and I can’t bear to do that. I can’t sit and wait for him to come home, terrified every night that he wouldn’t come back because he had hurt himself gravely while fighting.

Nothing could describe the weird relationship between us. Why the hell do we live together? My own feelings were clear, but what about his? Pity or Love? Was it just a random act of kindness?

This was far too weird. And I can’t bear the idea about what would happen after he would graduate. Will he go to college? Will he wait a year until I graduate? Every time the topic was brought up, Yunho would casually change the subject.

Too much fear for the future made me decide to pack my bags and leave.

Quietly.

I can’t and don’t know how to tell him goodbye.

 I bent down slowly to bring my face closer to his. I could smell a faint smell of cologne and see his lengthy eye-lashes. Then, I closed my eyes and kissed him on the lips. His lips were surprisingly soft and the contact was enough to send my heart beating wildly. But still, I forced myself to get up and leave.

Throwing one last look back at Yunho and at the house where I had spent the last three years of my life, I felt taken back. I did not want to leave, but this was unhealthy, I felt I was going insane for the love I held for him and for all the worrying about him.

I went in the kitchen and prepared what would be the last meal I would make for him. I heated the milk and started the fire. I cooked his favourite dishes and left them on the table.

You are holding him back. If it weren’t for you, Yunho wouldn’t be where he is right now.

Those very words were spoken to me by his sister. I was the reason he refused to go back home….because he had to take care of me, because he pitied me.

Why didn’t he tell me? Every time, he would just keep all the worries to himself, and smile at me reassuringly as if nothing was wrong. But there was so much that was wrong, so many things that I wanted to do for him and so little that I could actually do.

This was for the best.

I took a photograph of me and Yunho smiling in front of the lake. It was the only picture we had ever taken together, and I had taken it as a souvenir for myself, but also to get rid of any traces of me in the apartment.

I do not want his pity. I want him to know that I can survive very well by myself. Yunho had to stop going around fighting and partying, and find his own path. He was better than what people to see him as. Countless times, I had gathered the strength to leave, only to back out on the last second.

This time would the one. I thought. This was the one.

And I did it.

I left.

Taking the previously packed luggage, I walked out of the place I had come to call my home; I walked out of the place where my heart and laid; I walked out as an empty corpse. 

With every step I took, my legs got heavier and heavier, and tears threatened to spill. I kept going.

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Sorry if this is kind of depressing to start with =____=

* Please comment to let me know what you think about it!! *